Honey is a miraculous food. Properly stored, it can last for ever. Jars of the stuff, thousands of years old and still edible, have been found in the tombs of the Pharoahs and in the detritus of the Roman Empire. And one thing that honey has always contained is pollen, because foraging bees bring it back to the hive. It has never crossed the mind of beekeepers to list pollen as an ingredient in honey because, as one apiarist pointed out, it is “like saying peanuts contain nuts”. But under a ruling of the European Court of Justice, the possibility that some honey might contain pollen from genetically modified crops means that products will, for the first time, have to carry a list of ingredients. Beekeepers will also have to carry out

tests to show that their honey does not contain unauthorised GM pollen, a process that is expensive and may put those operating at the margins of profitability out of business.

Was it for this sort of lunacy that, 50 years ago today, a small delegation of British ministers and officials gathered in Brussels to begin the long process of taking the United Kingdom into what was then called the European Economic Community, or Common Market? The negotiating team was led by Edward Heath, a rising star in Harold Macmillan’s cabinet, for whom securing Britain’s entry a decade or so later (after initially being rebuffed by De Gaulle) was the crowning moment of his career. For many, Heath’s legacy is a baleful one of lost sovereignty, madcap rules, stultifying regulation and dwindling international influence.

For something that was supposed to be beneficial to the British economy, membership has also proved to be extremely expensive and increasingly detrimental to job creation. A cost-benefit analysis, published yesterday by the think-tank Open Europe, estimated that the annual cost to UK businesses and the public sector of EU social policy is £8.6 billion. This is roughly equal to the sum the Government expects to raise from stamp duty in 2010-11. The highest costs come from regulations that were fought for by the trade unions, such as the Working Time Directive, the Agency Workers Directive, the Control of Vibration at Work Regulations and the Fixed-Term Employees’ Regulations.

Open Europe, which is by no means a rabidly Eurosceptic organisation, concedes that there are important protections for workers provided by social regulations that should not be unravelled. But many rules are unnecessary – and just halving their cost could result in a boost to economic output equivalent to the creation of 140,000 new jobs in Britain. This, you might have thought, is an ambition that all politicians should strive to achieve at a time of economic slowdown. Indeed, such a move was being urged upon David Cameron last night at a Downing Street dinner attended by senior Tory Eurosceptics.

Yet it would mean renegotiation – and this has become the new battleground in the 50-year war over Europe. Those who want to repatriate some of these powers are essentially people who have never been comfortable with Britain’s EU membership. Pro-Europeans, by contrast, would rather the country continued to pay a high price than acknowledge that the other side might have been right. In the five decades since negotiations began, the politics have turned on their head: in 1961, it was the Tories who favoured entry and Labour who opposed it; today it is more often (though not always) the other way around. Indeed, one reason why Labour has warmed to Europe over the years is precisely because of the volume of social legislation that it has produced.

Exactly how much, though, it is virtually impossible to say. Estimates of the proportion of our laws that emanate from the European Commission’s directorates vary from less than 10 per cent to more than 80 per cent. Oddly, those who are the most enthusiastic supporters of the EU usually try to play down its influence on our lives, while those who revile it see its tentacles everywhere. Most experts believe that about 50 per cent of our laws and 70 per cent of our regulations originate in Brussels, which means that the EU’s regulatory powers far exceed those of the Government.

There are more than 17,000 EU Acts in force in 20 areas of competence. In truth, these laws have not been foisted upon us, since British ministers and officials have invariably been party to the discussions that have brought them about. We have been accomplices, if not always willing ones. That is the way the EU works. If you want to be a member you have to accept the will of the majority, save in those areas where the veto can be applied – and there are far fewer of those than there used to be. So does that mean we can change nothing?

If we could overturn the European Court of Justice’s rulings on the Working Time Directive, we would relieve pressure on the NHS. If we could reduce the impact of the Agency Workers Directive, employers would have greater flexibility to take on extra workers. If a whole host of other regulatory burdens were lifted, thousands of new jobs could be created. Why should this be something only of concern to Eurosceptics? The entire political class should be united in trying to rectify these matters, in the national interest. For good or ill, leaving the EU is not the policy of any mainstream party; in that case, politicians need to devise a plan for sensible reform that will find favour with other like-minded countries. Fifty years after Heath started the process that took us in to the EU, someone needs to find a way to make it worth our while to stay there – preferably before it insists upon putting a Use By date on jars of honey.